A Practical Guide to Escaping the Birthday Blues
by Mercury Soul
Summary: According to personal headcanon, today is Soul's birthday, so here, have a fic. Soul wasn't expecting anything special on his birthday, but he would have at least liked not to spend it with Stein and a bunch of witches. Maka, as usual, has a fix for that. Contains minor spoilers for the end of the manga, grumpy and/or sentimental Soul, and an incredibly stupid title.


**Author's Note-** And the award for the most boring and uncreative title of all time goes to...

But seriously though. According to my headcanons, today (November 22nd) is Soul's birthday! And what better way to celebrate than with a Soul-spam on Tumblr and a fic on FFnet? If I could draw I'd have done that too, but I'm about as good an artist as Maka is a musician.

* * *

As birthdays went, it was a pretty terrible one. Or perhaps the word he was looking for was "disappointing." He wasn't sure exactly why, because he'd had worse birthdays (his eighth, which had been mostly spent in the emergency room after Wes was stung by a bee, sprang immediately to mind). Maybe the problem was that he had gotten used to people giving a shit about him. But if he was honest with himself, Soul really hadn't been expecting all that much.

He wasn't much of a birthday kind of guy anyway. Sure, his parents had thrown him birthday parties when he was a kid (the kind of formal, polite birthday parties attended by classmates he'd spoken to exactly never and which no one under the age of forty was likely to enjoy, but they'd sincerely tried), but for obvious reasons those hadn't exactly been his cup of tea. Once he moved out to Death City he all but stopped celebrating his birthday altogether. He hadn't even bothered telling his friends when exactly it was. If Maka hadn't "borrowed" her father's death scythe ID in order to get access to his student file (which neither he nor the older scythe had really been amused by when they found out), no one would have ever known.

But she had gone and done exactly that and she had engraved November the 22nd in that enormous hard drive she had in place of a brain. He'd managed to talk her out of making a big deal out of it for four years straight, but she had always made sure that they did something to celebrate his birthday. It wasn't anything huge- just a nice dinner out with their friends or even just the two of them eating cake and watching terrible movies in their apartment- but it had been all the better for that.

So no, he hadn't been waiting on any elaborate surprise party or something tacky like that. Still, eighteen was a hallmark year. He could understand Black*Star being out of touch, because he and Tsubaki had been on a rough mission in Australia for the better part of a week and weren't expected back any time soon. But would it have killed his other friends to at least text him or something? That would have at least made what turned out to be an incredibly shitty day by regular standards a little better.

As it was, it had been one headache after another all day, starting with a literal one. Insomnia (induced by the black blood more than likely, although this time he'd been spared the unpleasant waking dreams that usually accompanied these episodes) had left him irritable and with a dull pounding behind his eyes that took six cups of tea and more aspirin than he cared to think about to suppress. He'd managed to spill his first attempt at tea all down his front and dropped the cup on his toe, forcing him to change his clothes before he had even been out of bed an hour. As if that wasn't a rough enough start to his day, he didn't even have the company of his meister to brighten his mood... or at least keep him from burning his toast and setting off the smoke alarm, which had done absolutely nothing for his headache. No, Maka had already been gone by the time he'd finally given up and abandoned any further attempts at sleep. He wasn't sure where she'd disappeared to, but she must have left early.

He had spent the entire morning and a good chunk of the afternoon sitting in on an emergency council with the Grand Witch Mabaa and her attendants. He had tried to talk his way out of it when he was called in, but the presence of a death scythe was required. With Marie still on maternity leave and Spirit out on a mission that Kid had elected to handle personally, Soul was the only available candidate to represent the shinigami. Soul could think of very few places he would have less liked to be. Treaty or not, a fair number of the elder witches made his skin crawl.

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening had consisted of a thorough debriefing with Stein, discussing the violent rogue coven that was Mabaa's concern at the moment. It was after ten o'clock before Stein decided he'd gotten everything of value out of Soul's account of the meeting. Soul didn't feel he had any special insights into what Shibusen could do to best assist the witch council in managing the affair, but it hadn't stopped Stein from picking his brain about it exhaustively. Then again, that might have just been Stein analyzing his responses for his own sick amusement. The scientist was more unstable than Soul was, but he'd had a bit of a fascination with all things Soul Eater ever since he had been infected with the black blood.

All things considered, he had spent the majority of the day with a major case of the creeps. And he _still_ hadn't heard from any of his friends.

When he stepped out the front door of Shibusen and discovered that, on top of everything else, the universe had decided that it was a perfect time for a rare Death Valley rainstorm, he couldn't even bring himself to be surprised.

"Fucking _perfect_," he growled, stuffing his hands in his pockets and glaring at the sky.

He promptly got an eyeful of raindrop.

Swearing colorfully under his breath, he trudged down the obscenely long staircase. By the time he'd reached the bottom and jogged across the street to where he'd parked his bike, he was drenched. By the time he had driven home, squinting hard against the water running down his face, he was freezing. All things considered, he just wanted to go inside, shuck off his wet clothes, and get some goddamn _sleep_.

When he entered the apartment, the first thing he was aware of was Maka's voice.

"-don't know! He wasn't here when I got home and-" There was a slight panicky note in her voice, but she cut off in the middle of whatever she was saying at the sound of the door slamming shut. "Soul?" she called from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen.

"Yeah!"

"It's okay, Jackie, he just got home. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, take care."

Soul was in the process of peeling off his leather jacket, which was dripping on the linoleum, when she emerged from around the corner, still clutching the receiver.

"Where have you been?" she demanded. "I've been trying to call you since five o'clock!"

He ran a hand through his hair, grimacing at the way the rain had managed to plaster it flat to his head. "Working," he grunted tiredly.

"What were you doing that you couldn't pick up the phone?"

"Dealing with witches," he mumbled, kicking off his shoes.

Her eyes went wide. "Without me?"

"No! Not like that, just political crap- Look, can we talk about this later?" He had had it up to _here_ with this day, he just wanted to go to bed and hopefully actually sleep tonight.

Maka, apparently, had other ideas. "No we cannot "talk about this later!" I was really worried, Soul! I couldn't find you with my soul perception and nobody had seen you all day. If you were gonna get roped into working on your birthday, you could have at least left me a note so I wouldn't think you'd been abducted or something!"

Soul probably could have come up with a placating but appropriately disinterested response, but he let out a violent sneeze instead.

Maka stared at him, apparently actually _looking_ at him for the first time since he'd walked in the door, and finally took note of the fact that he was soaked to the skin. "It's pouring outside, isn't it?"

"Yep," he said with a sniffle.

"And it's actually almost cold for once, isn't it?"

"Yep."

"And you rode home on the motorcycle?"

"Yep."

She sighed. "Go take a hot shower before you make yourself sick. I'll reheat dinner."

That sounded like the best plan he'd heard all day. Without another word spoken he scooted past her down the hall. He made a beeline for the bathroom, pulling his shirt over his head as he went.

Ten minutes standing under near-scalding water did a great deal to improve Soul's disposition. Once he finally felt less like a popsicle and more like an actual human being, he returned to the common area of the apartment, scrubbing at his hair with a towel as he went. He was freshly dressed in his favorite sweatpants and the hideously ugly t-shirt Black*Star had given him last Christmas that never failed to make Maka turn that pretty shade of red from trying so hard not to laugh every time she looked at him.

Speaking of Maka...

No longer distracted by wondering if it was actually possible for his extremities to freeze if it was over 40 degrees Fahrenheit, Soul was actually focused enough to _look_ at her. And clearly, something was up. She had her hair down, for one thing. For another, she was wearing that pretty jade green dress that made her eyes look amazing (to say nothing of what it did for her figure).

"Why're you all dressed up?"

She looked up, halfway through the process of scooping pasta onto a pair of plates. Before she could get around to responding to him, she stopped dead and burst out laughing.

"What?"

"Y-your hair!" she said through giggles, pointing at his head.

A glance at his dim reflection in the microwave confirmed that his damp hair, with the help of some vigorous toweling but without the gallon of hair products _he would never admit to using to achieve his hairstyle of choice_, had taken on an appearance reminiscent of a porcupine that had had an unfortunate run-in with a light socket.

"Yeah yeah, make fun of me some more, why don't ya?" he mumbled, running his fingers through his hair in a futile attempt to tame it. "You didn't answer my question- what's with the dress?"

"It's your birthday, dummy," she said pointedly, as if commemorating his existence had ever had any effect on her wardrobe in the past. "I was trying to surprise you with a nice dinner... except then I realized it was getting late and you had never showed up. And I ended up freaking out and calling half the people we know trying to find you."

Soul laughed. She was making that grumpy expression that she probably thought made her look ominous or something, but actually just ended up making her look like a confused puppy, and it was completely endearing. "Yeah, sorry," he said. "I checked my phone and it's gone all screwy. I think maybe it had something to do with being in the witch's realm."

"You should have Kim take a look at it," she remarked absently, handing his plate off to him and taking her own to the table.

They spent the meal chatting comfortably about inconsequential things. The food was good, and hadn't suffered too much for having been refrigerated and reheated, and Soul had a private laugh at the incongruous pair they made- he in his pajamas and she dressed up nicely. But then again... they always had been a study in contrasts. No need to break pattern now, when it had worked so well for them all these years.

For all that it had been a rotten day, Soul couldn't help but feel deeply contented. Hanging out with Maka always made him feel better as it was. The fact that, birthday or no, she had gone out of her way to do something nice for him, gave him all kinds of gooey sentimental feelings that he was pretty sure would cost him every last bit of Cool Guy credit he had if he were to say any of it aloud.

When they were finished eating, Maka stood up from the table. "Alright, since it's still your birthday for another-" She threw a glance at the clock. "-Twenty-three minutes, I'm gonna do the dishes, too. You should go to bed, I know you didn't sleep well last night."

_God, she knew him so well._

"We can save the cake until tomorrow," she continued.

"Wait, you made a cake, too?" Screw Cool Guy credit, he was this close to saying something so incredibly cheesy, there weren't enough nachos in the world. With what he considered to be admirable restraint (and a rather enormous grin on his face) he said, "You are the _best_, you know that?"

She matched him smile for cheeky smile and said, "Yeah, I know."

Maka hesitated for a split second. Then she leaned down and, to Soul's utter amazement, pecked him lightly on the cheek. "Happy birthday, Soul," she murmured, close to his ear.

When she straightened up, Soul was pretty sure she was blushing a little, and he was pretty sure she couldn't be more adorable if she tried. Flustered, and trying hard to hide it, she blurted out, "Now go to bed, idiot. You're gonna break your jaw if you keep yawning like you have for the last hour."

"Whatever you say," he said, with a fond smile and a roll of his eyes.

Alright, he conceded, maybe it hadn't actually been that terrible of a birthday after all.

* * *

**Author's Note part deux-** Kindly ignore the fact that this is terrible and full of cliches and stupidity (and did I mention it's terrible?). I was only just reminded of my own headcanon birthday for Soul like 12 hours ago so I didn't have a lot of time to put together something that wasn't shitty, especially since at least half of that time was spent at work dealing with angry insurance customers calling me names that aren't suitable for polite company. If I'd had more time, I'd have done the whole thing in elaborate detail and it'd be like 10K words or something, but I'm an idiot who can't remember my own headcanons apparently. *makes firm promises for next year*

(Also, I don't know where Blair is. Maybe she finally went back to her own house?)


End file.
